A homily for the Thirty-Third (and last) Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 17, 2024
Dn 12:1-3, Heb 10:11-14, 18, Mk 13:24-32
Several years ago, when I was in formation for ordination (the fancy name for deacon school), we had a session on time management. Well, kinda-sorta.
The presenter passed out wooden yardsticks and told us to find our ages on them by multiplying the inches by 2. He then mentioned that it’s customary for deacons to turn in their retirement papers at age 75 — just a little ways past the end of the yardstick, which represented 72.
The space between our age in inches times 2 and the end of the yardstick plus a little air represented the time each of us had/has to minister to God’s people.
(I did buy a copy of the time-management book he was hawking but I don’t recall ever reading it. Nonetheless, the in-person lesson stuck.)